


Neverland

by MostFacinorous



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Alternate Universe- Peter Pan, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:05:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MostFacinorous/pseuds/MostFacinorous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night on which Stiles' extraordinary adventures can be said to have begun was the night when his father did a double take at the window. He thought he'd seen a man, but when he investigated with his handgun, there was nothing there. Not a bird, or a leaf. </p><p>Seeing his father's concern and paranoia mounting, Stiles told him to forget about it.<br/>For what troubles a grown up will never trouble a child. </p><p>But later, when Derek Hale showed up, Stiles went with him. For who was he to deny a mysterious, broody guy who came in through the window and offered him adventure?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Stiles was an ordinary boy.  
His mother and father had spent much of their time reassuring him of that, especially once he was past the age of five, and regularly seeing and interacting with other, perfectly ordinary, boys and girls. 

The thing was, Stiles always knew that he wasn't perfectly ordinary. He had a hard time being perfectly anything. He was sometimes ordinary, perhaps… but the times that he wasn't, he was more like a character on his cartoon shows. He yelled and ran when he should speak softly and walk. He was always the last one out to recess, and the last one to come inside. 

This did not make him extraordinary. Just a troublemaker. 

He wanted to be extraordinary, though. Wanted it viciously and unquestionably. Because if he couldn't be perfect, he could, perhaps, be above it.

Of course, Stiles knew the importance of dreams, of not telling his to others, lest they be quashed. He didn't strike people as the sort to be able to keep a secret, but he kept this one close to him, like it was the most precious thing he possessed, and, to his mind, it was. 

❦

Stiles's dad had been the sheriff ever since he could remember. He was the one people called when monsters went bump in the night. He put bad people in jail, and helped good peoples' lives to be better. Safer. 

Stiles understood that at a young age, and, as he grew, his understanding did, too, but at the same time, he liked the simplified version. He liked the blanket assurance that no matter what, his dad the Sheriff would be able to take care of it, to keep everyone safe. 

That wasn't true, though. 

He knew it, and he had it shoved in his face time and again, but never so sharply as when Scott disappeared. 

For years now, almost ten years, children had been disappearing. Not large numbers of them, never more than one or two at a time, and usually with some time between them, but it added up. Vernon, Isaac, Erica, Scott, Jackson… the very first ones had been kids Stiles didn't know. Their names had been Laura and Derek, and they were older than Stiles, but Stiles remembered it, because there had been a fire at their house the day before, and his daddy hadn't been able to catch the bad guy that did it. 

And then the kids disappeared. 

Beacon Hills had always been quiet, safe… most people didn't lock their doors, even. But that all changed the day the Hale kids went missing.

It was months before Stiles was allowed to play outside again. 

Now he was fifteen, and it wasn't some boogeyman in the dark, something horrible that happened to someone else. 

Mrs. McCall stayed over that night. Stiles made his bed up for her, and he slept on the couch. He spent the night awake, with his blankets pulled up to his chin, staring at the front door, scared for his friend, and afraid that whoever had taken him would take Stiles too, since he and Scott had always been inseparable.  
Or, worse, wouldn't take him, and he would be forced to be alone. 

Things went back to the way they had been when his mom died, and his dad came downstairs the next morning to find Mrs. McCall gentling him down from a panic attack. 

The look they exchanged was so lost, so scared, that Stiles wished he'd never seen it. But now that he had, he would never be able to believe in the omnipotence of the adult again.  
It was staggering, so much happening all at once.

The sheriff assured him that he would not stop searching until Scott was found. He was like a second son to him. 

That night, Mrs. McCall slept at home. 

That night, Stiles cut out pictures of all the kids who had gone missing, and affixed them to tiny humans made from tubes of fabric; ruined socks his father could tell him off for cutting later. 

He wasn't really all that superstitious, but he liked thinking that if he kept these tiny effigies of the lost children safe, then the real things would be, too. 

He spread them out over his spare pillow, and clasped the tiny Scott to his chest. 

Sleep was far off, but it came with the inevitability of all things. The sun would rise, the days would go on, and slowly, the police would stop searching. 

❦

The night on which Stiles' extraordinary adventures can be said to have begun was the night when his father did a double take at the window. He thought he'd seen a man, but when he investigated with his handgun, there was nothing there. Not a bird, or a leaf. 

Seeing his father's concern and paranoia mounting, Stiles told him to forget about it.  
For what troubles a grown up will never trouble a child.  
That night, nearly a year after Scott's disappearance, Stiles awoke to see a man hovering over him, bent low over his bed, and staring down to watch him sleep. 

He reacted as any logically thinking teen might, with a well aimed punch thrown at his stalker's nose. The impact came and Stiles sat up in bed, his heart racing, but unable to cry for help, because of the hand that was clamped over his mouth.

"I'm not here to hurt you." The voice spoke low and quickly and Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, as though the thin layer of skin would save him from his current predicament.  
"I came because Scott said that you know how to research stories." 

Stiles felt as though the world tilted, and his bed was suddenly affixed to the wall. He opened his eyes wide, and the hand over his mouth moved away, cautiously. 

"You know where Scott is?" He asked, keeping his voice down. He didn't want to scare off his only link to his best friend. Not after so long without a leave. 

The man nodded carefully, and his attention shifted. Stiles followed his look and blushed. The man reached out and Stiles blurted "Don't—", but he lifted one of the dolls anyway. The Laura Hale doll. 

"She was pretty." He said, one blunt fingernail tracing the outline of the picture's face. "Why do you have these?" 

"I—to keep them safe." Somehow, he didn't feel odd telling that to this man. He knew where Scott was. He'd known Laura. Past tense.  
"Is Scott safe?" 

The man nodded, gently lifting the other dolls. 

"Yes. They all are. Except her." He sat the rest down, but kept cradling Laura gently in his palm. 

"What happened?"

He looked up from the effigy to Stiles, considering.  
"You believe me?"

"Yes." Stiles barely breathed it, too taken with the hope that everything—almost everything—could be okay. They could come home. 

"And you are good at research?" The man prompted, and Stiles shrugged. 

"I haven't thought about it much since Scott disappeared, but yeah. I used to be. Who are you?"

The man picked up the other doll, the one that went with Laura. 

"My name's Derek." He said, offering them back to Stiles. Stiles took them without looking. He knew the faces all perfectly; he spent every day of his life imagining that he saw them everywhere. But he'd never accounted for aging. 

"Derek. Derek Hale?" Derek nodded. 

"Wow." Stiles was quiet, almost reverent, unsure what to say. 

"Will you come with me? Help us? Scott misses you."

Stiles wanted to say yes. He wanted to say that that was all he had wanted. But what came out instead was logic, logic that seemed in no way connected to him. 

"I should tell my dad where I'm going." 

Derek backed away, frowning. 

"I can't let anyone know where we're going. Have to keep them safe."  
When he crossed in front of the window, Stiles saw what he wore. 

Jeans too short for him, a shirt too large. A leather coat, obviously scavenged from somewhere, maybe stolen from a biker. Derek hadn't had someone to care for him in a very long time.  
It made Stiles's heart ache. 

"Let me pack a bag. I'll come with you. Is there anything you and the others need?

Derek cocked his head, as though the idea of planning ahead enough to pack was completely foreign to him. 

Stiles sighed and untangled his legs from his sheets. 

No wonder Scott had sent Derek to come find him. The poor guy needed all the help he could get.  
He went to pack his laptop, but Derek stopped him. 

"Dude, if you want me to research, I need research tools."

"We'll find you another one. This one would lead them to us. I have to keep the kids safe." 

Stiles's gaze softened. "There's something wrong with them, isn't there?"

Derek stared at him, his face drawn into lines that didn't say anything. But sometimes the silence is enough.

When he was ready to leave though, Derek gestured towards the window, and Stiles couldn't help but be confused. 

"Isn't it easier to, I don't know, use the front door?"

Derek snorted.  
"People might see, then. Come on." He climbed through the window and out onto the roof, his movement graceful and practiced. Stiles stuck his head out, unsure.

"See what? It's like, three in the morning. Most people don't even know this hour of the day exists."

In answer, Derek turned into a large wolf, and shook his upper body. Stiles sat down, hard, and stared for just a minute, taking in the dark shag of fur and the bright red eyes. 

Derek shook again, impatient, and Stiles took hold of his windowsill, placing one foot gingerly onto the roof before following with the rest of him. 

He approached slowly and stroked Derek, making sure he was real, not a dream, and then pressed a hand to his shoulder gently, afraid to hurt him, and climbed on, the way it seemed Derek wanted him to. 

The moment he was settled, Derek lurched into motion, and Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, hands fisting in the pelt of the wolf Derek had become.


	2. Two

He may have passed out or fallen asleep, depending on how quickly Derek was actually capable of running. Either way, when he opened his eyes, he was cradled to Derek's chest, and standing in a half ring around him were the missing children.

Not really children any more. 

Vernon had grown up most noticeably, his shoulders going broad—broader even than Derek's. He was tall, too, and powerful looking. He drew your eye by being still, calm, when those around him all but writhed with emotions. He nodded when he realized Stiles was staring at him, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, and Stiles couldn't help but smile, even though Vernon was dirty, his clothing too small and tattered, some seams split and held together with large, clumsy stitching. 

Stiles's eyes slid over to the one that must be Jackson. He looked angry, upset, like he didn't like what was happening. Like he didn't like Stiles, which made no sense. He didn't even know him. They had never spoken at school, because he was tall, pretty, and popular. He was the guy everyone had wanted to be, with his friends and his money and his girlfriend—Lydia was Stiles's dream girl, and had been ever since he realized that girl cooties were a thing you wanted to try and get. 

Jackson was dirty, too, his hair long and greasy looking, and his face sooty with lines that suggested that frowns were the most common expression that he wore.

Erica put a calming hand on Jackson's forearm, where it crossed over his chest, and Stiles offered her a smile in thanks.   
She smiled back, and even though she was just as dirty as the rest of them, he could see how she'd grown more beautiful as she'd grown up, how with just a bit of conditioner and some new clothes, she could be devastating to mankind. 

Isaac, beside her, seemed aware of that, or at least aware that others would be able to see through the grime. He was eyeing Stiles warily, like he thought he might steal her, or any member of his family away from him. His arm moved, and Stiles looked down to see that while he stood closer to Erica, his hand was intertwined with Scott's. 

And there he was, Scott, dirty, older, but not unrecognizable. His small, uncertain smiles were gone, with no evidence of ever having existed when his grin of sheer relief and joy at having found Scott split his face.   
He wriggled out of Derek's grasp, too excited to be more than passingly embarrassed about having just sat there and let a strange guy hold him while he was inaudibly introduced to the group. 

"Scott!"  
Scott surged forward and wrapped him in a hug, each of them holding tight like neither wanted to risk letting the other go.   
Stiles's head was swimming with questions, but now didn't feel like a good time to ask any of them. 

Fortunately, Derek stepped in. 

"This is Scott's friend, Stiles. He's a researcher." 

And then Stiles found himself surrounded by dirty, eager faces that were all too… too young. 

He realized that, in the same sort of way that he had spent so long refusing to acknowledge the horrors outside of his front door, these kids had never grown up… but there was something else there, too. A desperation, an edge of wildness…   
Like they'd all had it shoved in their faces the same way he had.   
And their reaction was to run to these woods, wherever they were. 

He smiled at them all over the chorusing and arguments and noise, but this time, his smile was sad. 

He thought Derek noticed, but he turned away before Stiles could be sure.

❦  
That morning, left alone with Scott, while the others slept, after he told them the extremely confusing circumstances that led to Ragnarok within the boundaries of Marvel's 616 universe, he asked him in a whisper to come for a walk. 

Scott looked wary, but agreed all the same.

Stiles shuffled his feet along the forest floor, not quite able to see well enough to be sure he wouldn't trip and fall and die. Scott, however, didn't seem to have that kind of issue. 

"Is he holding you hostage somehow?" He pried, getting fed up with Scott's silences. 

"No. I mean it. He's… he helped us, and now he's protecting us."

"What is he protecting you from?" 

"Hunters. And… it gets worse. I'm in love." 

"How is that worse, Scott? That's great, good for you buddy. Back to the hunters, though…" 

"She's the daughter of the chief of the Hunters." 

"You have no self preservation instinct and you are going to wake up dead if you sleep with her."

"Thanks, yeah. She's wild about me back though, so that's good at least."

"And Derek?"

"Went and got you when he found out. I think he hopes you'll serve to distract me. I don't know." 

"Why don't you just come home?" 

"I can't. It's not safe. Not for me, or the people around me." 

"The hunters." Stiles said, nodding. "And how do I fit in again?"

"We need someone who can… you know how Derek says it's to research stories? He needs someone who can read something fantastic, and take it with a grain of salt, and whittle it down to the truth. Because we need help figuring out what all this… Derek brought you here as a wolf, right? We're supposed to be able to do that too. But something is wrong, something—we can only go half way. He's trying to fix us, but he can't. And he needs someone to help. Because he… he's not so great at this being in charge thing. He tries, but sometimes I think he's more lost than we are." 

"Naturally." Stiles responded, narrowly avoiding a faceplant brought on by a tree root. "He was here first. He's been here the longest. Are there even any grown ups around for him to learn from?" He was having an easier time, walking now.

The sun had began to rise, and light started filtering through the leaves of the trees. 

Suddenly, Scott got agitated. 

"We have to go back. We can't—it's not safe to be out here once the sun's up. Come on Stiles!" 

He was terrified, and started a headlong rush through the plants, heading back the way they'd come. It was all Stiles could do to keep up with him, and by the time they'd reached the lost children's den, the sun was cresting over the mountains, and Derek was standing there with his arms crossed, glowering at them. 

He didn't say a word, though, just stepped aside and let them pass, though he snarled at Scott, who dipped his head and flinched like he expected to be hit for endangering them. 

Stiles watched the exchange through narrowed eyes, and when Derek turned to look at him, he made no attempts at hiding his distrust. 

But he followed Scott back to the corner of the den where he made his bed, and crawled in next to him, exhausted beyond imagination after having spent all night being awake, and finding these people, lost so long most of them were assumed to be dead. 

Through eyes slipping shut, he saw Derek come in, saw him close the door and do something, sealing off every last crack of light. But he couldn't hang on to his consciousness long enough to see what. 

Stiles's eyes slid closed, and he slept, for the first time in a long time, not dreaming of lost kids, looking for a way home. He'd found them. They weren't trying to get back.   
There had to be a reason why.

❦  
"You ask too many questions." Derek informed him, eyebrows inching together towards the center of his forehead. Stiles had a moment of wondering if it was more of a Lady Hawk situation, where never the two shall meet, or if their contact would cause some sort of forehead based explosion.   
And then he realized that he hadn't taken his pills today—or had he? It was technically tonight, he knew that much. 

"Questions are a good way of finding things out. Sesame street said so." Stiles pointed out. 

"Asking questions is also a damn good way of getting yourself killed."   
Stiles felt his hands balling into fists. 

"Is that a threat?" 

"Just, stay here. You can handle that, right?" 

"Stay here? Alone? Why does everyone else get to go? And… are you going to lock me in here alone?"

"I just have too much to deal with without trying to keep you safe on top of it, too."

"Is it a wolf thing? Are they going to try and change again tonight?"

Derek gave him a sharp look, as though surprised he knew, then he narrowed his eyes at Scott.   
"Did he show you what they become?" Derek asked. Stiles shook his head.   
"When I become a wolf, I have a wolf inside of me, to tell me what to do. When they change, they lose their human side, but they don't have a wolf, and so they panic. They become monsters. And they're strong. And fast. It's difficult controlling them, and I don't want you to be hurt."

"But if I don't see, if I don't know, how can I be any help at all?" 

Derek had no response for that. And so it was that Stiles was the first human allowed to see the lost children when they became the beasts.


	3. Three

Stiles was perched in the low branches of a tree, wrapped in his coat, a sweatshirt large enough to be a tent for him, and a blanket. He would have to stay here all night, without drawing attention to himself. 

Derek was doing his best to keep the young not-wolves as far away from his side of the clearing as possible, but they needed to get out, to run around… and this was the only way Derek could let them. 

Left alone, Stiles had time to think about them, while he observed. 

He didn't think they were as monstrous as Derek had said they were. They stood like people, but when they ran, they hunched their shoulders low, their arms and legs moving long and graceful, more of a lope than a run. It was graceful, and controlled. And sure, they were fast. Freakishly so, but they also showed that they knew who the others were. Isaac would follow Scott, until Erica stopped chasing Vernon, and would stare at him, and Isaac would trot over to her like a puppy called to heel.   
Jackson and Scott kept their distance, snarling when one of them got too close. It was exactly the same dynamics that they showed as people. And that proved Derek wrong. 

That in mind, Stiles began attempting to climb down from the tree, but the moment he started moving, the kids heard him, saw him, and then it was all Derek could do to slow them down. 

Stiles slipped, trying to halt his descent and getting caught up by gravity, but the sweater, much too big to not be in the way, snagged on a tree branch, and left him hanging from the back of him, his legs dangling out above the heads of the transformed kids.

Their faces transformed, too, now, the small snarls they had offered each other to establish pecking order now shifted to warning growls and gnashing of teeth. 

They paced around under him, occasionally taking a swipe at his feet, and he bent his knees, trying to pull himself further out of reach. 

It just made them angrier. 

Vernon was the one who finally solved the problem, running off a short way to lower his head and slam his broad, foot ball player's shoulders into the trunk of the tree. Stiles felt the branch he was suspended from quiver, and Vernon did it again. 

Meanwhile, Derek was there, trying to shove his way through the barrier that the other kids had formed around the tree.   
"Hang on, Stiles!" He told him, façade of calm cracking under the stress of the situation. The werekids weren't attacking him, but they weren't letting him through, either.   
And Vernon kept slamming into the tree. 

With a last shuddering blow, the branch gave, and cracked, sending Stiles falling to the forest floor and what he was sure would be an uncomfortable death from being torn apart. 

He his the ground on his side, and immediately curled in on himself, trying to protect his face, his ribs…   
But the tearing didn't come. 

There was a vicious snarl, and he peeked out from between where his arms had come up to cover his face to see the wolf that was Derek standing over him, and the half wolves that were the kids shrinking back from him. They sat, like obedient toddlers before a kindergarten teacher, and slowly they calmed, their features going more and more human because of it. 

Stiles waited, breathing as quietly as he could, and ignoring the ache in his bones and the dull throbbing of his terrified heartbeats as everything slowed. 

Soon they looked human again, and Derek changed back as well. Stiles found himself face to butt with a naked man who had just saved his life.   
He opened his mouth to thank him, but Derek turned and scowled at him with such ferocity, that even in his human form, he understood why the werekids wouldn't mess with him. 

Derek turned back around and nodded at Scott, before stalking off, presumably to find some clothes or something. Maybe to kill something so he didn't hurt Stiles. 

Stiles clambered to his feet, his wince making Scott hurry to his side. 

He looked at each of the lost kids' faces—everyone looked ashamed, afraid to meet his eyes, and Jackson looked a bit like he wouldn't mind tearing him apart even now.  
Still, they formed a circle around Stiles, and escorted him back to the hideout, moving at his pace and not mentioning it, even though they were clearly nervous when the sun came up when they were nearly there.   
❦  
"That's twice in a row you've allowed yourselves to nearly be seen."   
Derek sounded stern, more worried than angry, and Stiles shrank into his covers, the aches and bruising from yesterday making him loathe to emerge and face the telling off he was sure he was going to get. 

"I didn't mean to be out that late. Things are just—you know it's different any time we get a new one. And I was careful—I looked and smelled, and I didn't find any trace of them. I don't think we were seen." 

"But you don't know that." 

"And you would? Maybe if you were there, yeah, but you weren't, so we took care of it. We're doing the best we can, Derek." 

"Go get Stiles up. He's awake, he's just sc—just get him started researching. I don't know how much longer we have to fix this before the Hunters come after us again." 

"Yeah. Okay." 

Stiles listened to Derek's footsteps as he walked past. They faltered near him, like Derek wanted to say something, and then picked up again, moving by without a word. 

Scott crouched down next to him.   
"How you feeling man?"

He shrugged, groaning as hurt muscles that he hadn't known were there started complaining.  
"Hanging in. Sorry, bad joke. Anyway…What does Derek even want me to be researching?"  
"How to turn us all the way… or turn us back." 

Stiles let out a low whistle. 

"And how am I supposed to know which stories are true?" 

"That's the problem. We have books, Derek's family's books, but none of us have the patience, and we're not good at sorting things out like that. Like, Jackson tried the most out of all of us—he's really angry about this. He hates being ugly, and less strong than Derek. But there's just so much shit out there, and it's a needle in a haystack. Boyd's the next best with books—he's the big guy—and even he isn't making much headway. But he's a little more chill with the situation, you know? He just kind of gets lost in the stories."

"But how does it happen? How did you go from playing video games with me, to being a missing child with fangs and fur?" 

"Derek. He… I think he was lonely. I don't know. I know the first one was an accident… Laura turned Erica, trying to make herself a friend. The hunters caught her soon after that. Isaac came next, he was in trouble… his dad nearly killed him. He wanted to be stronger, and he needed a friend, and Erica asked Derek, and Derek I guess… gave in. Boyd found them; he's really smart. He just wanted to solve the mystery of the missing kids. He ended up being friends with Erica—they sort of have a thing now. And so he asked if he could stay, and by then they knew something was wrong, but Derek was hoping that if he turned someone who was already pretty strong, he'd have a better chance of making it through. But, no dice. Then Jackson… he ran away from his parents, when they told him he was adopted. Ran right into the middle of them going out for a run. He got mauled up pretty bad, and Derek saved him and took care of him until he was better, but he ended up turning too, because of the wounds. And then, me, do you remember right before I disappeared?"

"I remember we had a sleepover. And you were stressing about a new school, with new teachers and a new schedule, and all that sort of thing." 

"I was worried—no, I mean, I knew I wasn't good enough, and nothing was going to be different, and there was just this certainty that nothing was ever going to get better, you know?"

"Yeah. Kinda true. But I mean, I'm biased… I didn’t have my best friend to get me through it."

"I'm sorry. I just… thought it would be different. Derek thought it would be different, I guess because I had an uncle that he knew was friends with his family… like, furry friends. But… yeah. So here we are."

 

"So I'm supposed to find a cure or find a way to make you into what Derek is… what do you want to be?"

Scott didn't have an answer to that.  
Stiles still didn't understand why.


	4. Four

"I wanted to say I'm sorry." Vernon—Boyd—was right at his elbow, and Stiles startled, having become so absorbed in the book he was checking out that he hadn't even registered his approach. 

"Oh, uh, what? I mean, why?" Stiles shook his head, swimming his way back to actual reality, where werewolves weren't beautiful women who peeled their skin off… he thought. He might have to ask Erica about it, though. 

"For the other day. When we went for our hunt, and I uh. Hunted you." 

Stiles stared, hand half raised to wave it off when he understood the implication. 

"Wait, are you telling me you're aware when you're like that? Like—did you recognize me? Or do you just remember what happened?" 

"Not—as such? You were a shape, and a smell, but you weren't one of us. We all smell the same. You smelled a little like us, and a lot like stranger, and I didn't… all I knew was that you were in our area, and you were taunting us, by dangling like that. And Erica was excited, and I wanted to help—wow, this is a weird conversation to be having."

"Yeah, I guess your mom told you not to talk to your food, huh?"

Vernon stared at him for a sec, then laughed. 

"You're an odd one." 

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Stiles's smile widened, even though he felt a familiar little wave of panic, worry that even with wolf-kids, he would be the weird one.

"So, I marked some of these pages. They're not all useful… some of them are just interesting stories. And I underlined things that I knew were facts, things that I have seen happen with my own eyes. The ones that have a lot of truth in them are on that shelf." 

"You are about 200% more helpful than the rest of the pack combined. Wow. That—thank you!" Stiles felt a little less like he was drowning in the piles now. 

"Derek is supposed to be getting you a computer tonight, so he won't be around much, but he wanted me to let you know." 

"Oh, awesome. That—thanks."   
"Not me you have to thank. But yeah, if you need anything, let me know. I'll see what I can do." 

Erica was making eyes at him from across the room, and Stiles knew Boyd could see it, but didn't want to be rude and just leave. 

"Yeah, you got it. Thanks man--now go see your girl before she decides to come after me again for delaying you."   
That got him another little laugh, and Boyd waved his hand and wandered off. 

"Vernon, wait—uh. Boyd, I mean. Um. If you had your choice, what would it be? Wolf, or human?" 

Boyd twisted his lips thoughtfully, then just shrugged.   
"Whichever comes first, I guess." 

Stiles nodded, but he still wondered.  
❦

Stiles stayed in that night when the kids went out to run amok, and when they came back in, he only saw Derek for a second before he was gone again.   
Scott and Isaac came to sit by him, reeking of sweat and falling bonelessly into the mismatched chairs around the singed table. 

He fought back a feeling of being weirdly annoyed at the interruption, and decided he actually welcomed the break. He'd been at it for hours. 

"What do you guys do for food around here?" He asked over the sounds of his stomach rumbling. 

"Derek usually brings it. There's sandwich stuff in the fridge." 

"What do you guys do for electricity? And… internet, when I get the laptop?"

Scott and Isaac turned to look at each other, shrugging. 

"Never really thought about it. I guess Derek probably takes care of that, too." 

"Huh." Was all Stiles said, but he got a sinking feeling in his stomach.   
Derek was just as much of a missing person as the rest of them. Where would he get money? His family had died in the fire, and sure, that meant social security, as well Stiles knew, but… how did you claim it if you were presumed dead? 

He resolved to ask Derek that when he got back, later. 

He ended up falling asleep on a book long before he got the chance.  
❦

"Soo… how do you afford this place?" He found himself jogging to keep up with Derek, who seemed to only have lengthened his strides when Stiles had started talking, like he was trying to make it even harder for him to get the words out. Not that that would stop him. Very little could. 

"I have someone handling my accounts through a legacy trust. Third parties."

"Then why can't you afford real clothes that fit?" He fired off the next question almost before Derek was done talking, mindful of how Derek's shoulders tensed.

"Cards are easily traceable and with as often as I end up shredding my clothes and having to leave them, thanks to having to—" He shot a sideways glance at Stiles. "Carrying cash isn't a good idea." 

He nodded, then stilled, sobering. 

"Why don't they want to leave you, Derek? Why don't they want to go home?"

Derek looked startled, and then disturbed.

"They told you that?" 

"They sort of manage not to, but it's not like they're jumping to rejoin society or anything. I want to know why. What have you told them?" 

"Nothing." Derek's surprise, his temporary show of vulnerability, was gone, and he was back to being gruff, and closed off. 

"You're not going to try and make me want to stay here, too? Are you going to try to make me one of them?" It was Stiles's turn to be surprised. 

"What good would that do? You're more useful as a human." 

His stomach lurched, and he nodded.   
"Right. I forgot. Okay." And he fell silent, which he was sure was a relief to Derek. Even if the guy did keep looking at him out of the corner of his eye while they walked. 

"Where are we going, anyway?" 

"Shopping. You said we needed clothes." 

Stiles felt his jaw drop, and had to all but run to catch back up after his momentary falter. 

"Yeah, yeah alright. Can—do you think we could stop by my place, let my dad know I'm okay? I'm sure he's worried sick."

"And have him detain me for questioning? Make me tell them where the rest of them are—make you tell them? No. Too dangerous. For them, for us, for every body. No." 

He had a point, but it still didn't sit right with Stiles. He was parsing out how best to vocalize it, when Derek interrupted his thoughts. 

"What's the difference between regular girls underwear and bikini cut? That's what Erica wants." 

"Is that seriously why you asked me to come with you? Because you're at a loss about girls underwear? Because I promise you man, whatever experience you have, it's more than I've got."

Derek went quiet, jaw ticking, before he finally offered,   
"No, I asked you to come with me because I thought you were afraid of me, after I turned into a wolf, when they attacked you." 

"That would be stupid. I rode you once, when you were a wolf, and without you, I would have been Stiles tartare or something. So like, why would I be scared? I don't trust you, because you're a serial child napper responsible for the disappearance of my best friend, but… what are you gonna do?" He shrugged, feeling oddly philosophical about everything. 

"….. yeah, that was dumb. No one who's scared talks as much as you do." 

"So back to those underwear…"

"Stiles."

❦  
Shopping for teenaged werewolves, even without knowing sizes exactly, was pretty easy. T shirts fit everyone and come in packs of three or five, jeans could be measured against how long Derek's legs were, and everyone got belts. 

Underwear packages were equally easy—simple underwear in sizes that seemed right, and the girls' bags even were labeled with 'bikini', so no stress. 

Getting back home, though, was the part that turned out to be terrifying and stressful. 

Because it was light by the time they reached the middle of the woods, and the hunters were out in full force and looking for them.


	5. Five

Chris Argent was not a man who looked too deadly on first glance. He was tall, well built, in a sort of 'I go for jogs every morning' sort of way, but it wasn't until you could see his eyes clearly that you realized what it was that made him dangerous. 

He was smart, in the way that said if he wanted to, he could have killed you ten minutes ago and you wouldn't even have known. 

"I see you have a new addition to your little family of abominations, Derek." He said, and Derek snarled and strained forwards from where he was being held between two of Argent's men.

"He's human." Derek ground out, between teeth pressed so hard together that Stiles was surprised they didn't crack and shatter and trickle out of his mouth like a cartoon.   
But maybe that was the budding hysteria talking. 

Chris raised a light and shone it in Stiles's eyes, making him squint and mutter a somewhat delayed, "Hey!" But it was gone almost as soon as it had started. 

"So he is… why?" Chris turned away, leaving Stiles to stand there, not even dignified with having the guys lurking behind him hold on to him—because with his build and humanity he was obviously not even sort of a threat. 

"He's a friend. But you can't hurt him, because he's human."

"Why can't they hurt me? Do I have magic powers as a human that I don't know about?" Stiles's mouth ran off with him again and he realized that not taking his pills was a problem. But he hadn't thought he'd need them, since he wasn't going to be devoting his mind to research, and he really had to be conscious of his use of them, since he wasn't exactly in a position to get the prescription filled or renewed right now. 

"I know others may feel that our code is more like guidelines, but we believe that abiding by the rules keeps the world going around. Rules keep things normal."

"I haven't broken any of your rules. I haven't killed any humans. I'm not about to kill that one." 

"No, that's true, you haven't. And the wolf that killed my sister has already been taken care of. But he's not an adult, is he? I'm sure he's got a mother who's missing him terribly right now." Chris turned back to Stiles. 

"I really don't. She's dead." Stiles told his quizzically tilted eyebrows. 

Chris smiled, this disarming thing that would possibly be attractive if he wasn't more worried about having his throat ripped out than he had been since that first run incident. 

Derek snarled and pulled himself free, ending up on his hands and knees and beginning to transform as soon as he hit the ground. 

Once he was a wolf, he turned to look at Stiles, made a noise that sounded suspiciously like an anxious whimper, then turned tail and ran away. 

"Well, you can't think I'd be so inhumane as to leave you alone, or throw you to the wolves, a sweet kid like yourself." Chris spoke as though nothing had changed, as though Derek hadn't slipped right out of his hands. 

He nodded at the men behind him, and Stiles was lifted, not even marched off, just lifted by his arms, and walked away with like he was a bag of dog food or something. 

Stiles couldn't even say he was disappointed. After all, he wasn't part of Derek's pack. And he couldn't exactly fight back or anything… they'd made it very clear that the only reason they hadn't killed Derek yet was because he hadn't killed anyone on his own first. The wolf was so powerful, it would have been far too easy for that to change by accident. 

❦  
"We search, as ever, for Derek Hale and his den. Luckily, we found you, stumbling through our part of the forest."   
Stiles was on his knees on the concrete floor in the Argents' basement. His arms were bound behind him, and Chris Argent crouched before him, one hand on his jaw, making sure Stiles looked him in the face.   
"You know where they are, don't you, boy?"   
Stiles shook his head, as much to say no as to try and get the hand off of him.   
He didn't manage to get it far.   
"I wouldn't tell you if I could. But I can't, because one, my focus is shot without my Adderall, and two, I was blindfolded when they brought me there."  
"My gun thinks you do." Chris pressed on, raising his other hand to trail the barrel of the gun against Stiles's throat. "And why the loyalty? Scott is your friend, isn't he? Didn't Derek take him from you? Isn't Derek the one who turned him into the abomination he is today? Let us find them, let us try to help them… and then you can go home. And Derek will be all on his own again. A fitting punishment, wouldn't you agree?" 

"What did you do to Laura Hale? Was it you who burned down the Hale house? Killed their entire family?"

Chris's face transformed with rage.   
"They killed my sister. My Father. My wife. Don't mistake your monsters for angels." His eyes narrowed and he choked, rendered wordless, and, unable to finish speaking, he smacked the butt of his gun against Stiles's temple, knocking him out.   
❦  
Stiles came to on his own, alone in the basement, curled on his side on a rug, at least, and with his arms still tied.   
"How like a boy. Pathetic. Weak." Chris's voice came floating in before the man himself stepped through the door. He'd changed clothes, and Stiles wondered how long he'd been unconscious. "You realize, with our training, you could be strong… could be a real asset."

His mouth was dry and his shoulders felt hot with the strain of their position. 

"Here, let me help you." Chris lifted Stiles first to his knees, and then to his feet, pulling him by the rope so that he had to bend at the waist and stumble. The motions pulled a pained grunt from him, and he glared at Chris, but otherwise didn't say a word.

"Now, you can either help us find them the easy way, or the hard way." 

Stiles spat in his face. "I'm not helping you. You're the monsters here." 

Chris wiped the saliva off one handed, and gave Stiles an angry look. 

"Did you know," he said conversationally, "That werewolves have extremely good hearing? Oh yes. So that no matter where in the forest we take you, they will absolutely be able to hear your screams."

❦

Now, all hunters are not as they are in storybooks. Some are good people, in touch with reality.   
Derek knew that if Argent was holding Stiles, the only way to get him back would be to enlist the help of Allison, via Scott. 

"Oh, how sweet." Derek interrupted their greetings snidely. "But isn't your dad holding your friend hostage, in an attempt to find and kill everyone you know?" Allison and Scott broke apart, looking sheepish and regretful. "Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought. So what do we do about it?"

"Well, there was some talk about taking him out to the lake tomorrow afternoon." 

"The lake? Why?" Scott looked lost.

"Because then no one will find the body." Derek snapped. "When tomorrow?" 

Allison didn't know. So Derek took Scott home, and sat down with the rest of them, organizing teams of two to make rounds, patrolling the lake in search of Stiles.   
He was a liability. The pack wasn't ready for a fight of this magnitude and importance.   
They were doomed. And come tomorrow, Scott might be killing his girlfriend's father.  
Or vice versa.   
They were sweet. But that was the problem with love—it would sweetly drown you if you got too close.

❦  
"Put the boy on the rock."   
Chris stood on the bluff above them, looking up and out, across the area that surrounded them.   
"Come and get him." He quietly challenged, and Stiles didn't know if anyone heard Argent but him. "Come save him, and I will shoot you right through your noble intentions."  
Stiles figured this was really smart, actually. The hunters had their backs to the water, and the valley they were in would make his voice echo pretty well, all things considered.  
It wasn't really something he wanted to think about.  
"Is there anything you want us to tell your family, if you don't make it?"   
"He's an orphan. Just do your job."  
"I'm not an orphan! My dad, he's Sheriff of Beacon Hills. Tell him… tell him there was nothing he could do? Please?"

Chris's look of horror was something that Stiles couldn't help but feel incredibly smug about. 

And then it all sort of erupted at once.

Derek was there, as a wolf, tackling Chris. And the others were swarming over their respective hills, where they'd apparently been hiding.   
Gun shots went off.   
There were screams. Of pain. Of terror. 

Stiles couldn't see, couldn't tell who was winning. Couldn't tell who, if anyone, was dying.   
And he couldn't tell if he should be worried about being eaten, or grateful about being rescued, or worried about which of his friends was going to make it out alive. 

When the dust cleared, the hunters had run off. Derek ended up throwing most of the werekids in the lake, which snapped them out of their transformations. Boyd remained dry, and came out of the transformation on his own, and it was him who helped Derek to get Stiles off the rock. 

When Stiles could turn around, he saw why Derek had needed help.   
He'd been shot in the arm, and it already looked infected, inflamed… it was dark colored and wrong. Gunshot wounds shouldn't look like that. 

Erica hovered nervously beside Derek, gentle fingers turning his arm so she could see it. 

"It's time to visit Deaton, Derek. This isn't… this isn't right, and you know it. Besides, look at Isaac's face."

Scott was helping Isaac out of the water, and not all of the liquid dripping off of him was clear. He had a long, ragged red stripe trailing down, from the middle of his forehead, diagonally across to his cheekbone and off the side of his face, to resume on his shoulder. It looked deeper there, like the blade had sunken in. 

"Yeah, we… let's go see Deaton."

Confused, Stiles rubbed his wrists.   
"Who's Deaton?"


	6. Six

Deaton, as it turned out, was the local veterinarian. Which would be funny, if the kids' faces didn't look so drawn and pinched with worry, and Derek didn't keep stumbling and leaning on Boyd and Jackson between steps. 

"You're here much earlier than you usually come, and I see you have a new member. My assistant Danny is still here… give me just a minute to clear a table for you. In the meantime, have a seat." Deaton gestured at one of the chairs in the lobby, and then calmly flipped over the sign on the door to say that they were closed. 

"Danny?" Jackson asked Stiles, and Stiles remembered that they'd been friends. 

"Danny, yeah, that Danny. He thought some work experience would look good on college applications, and besides, he likes the pocket money."

Jackson stood back up from where he'd sat after dropping Derek off in a chair. Isaac, beside him, startled at the sudden movement, and Erica ran a soothing hand through his hair. 

"Jackson—seeing you might come as a shock to him. Remember that everyone thinks… everyone sort of assumed you're dead."

"Nah, I knew you were too stubborn for any of that." Danny said from the doorway, toweling his hands. 

The way Jackson's face lit up--Stiles hadn't known he could be that happy. Danny's face relaxed into a pleased grin, and he held his friend to him for a long moment before his eyes fell on the bleeding Isaac and the too-pale Derek. 

He watched Danny's fingers tighten around Jackson's shoulders, then he pushed him out to arm's length. 

"Help me get your friends in the back, and then we can catch up. Okay?" 

The tension seeped out of Jackson's shoulders, and he nodded once before turning around. 

When he lifted Isaac, he was much gentler, much more careful about how he moved him, and Stiles wondered distantly if it was regression, or just for Danny's benefit. Either way, Isaac was looking up at him as though he was his hero, and Stiles hoped it wouldn't go terribly for him later because of it. 

 

 

❦  
"I have pills and injections for your arm, but I don't know how they'll interact with werewolf physiology." Deaton had gotten Isaac taken care of. Apparently his face should heal pretty evenly—it hadn't even actually required stitches. But the shoulder had, and he had pulled part of the tip of the knife out, where it had lodged in there.

Then he'd turned to look at Derek, who had begun puking dark grayish purple bile. 

"Well, what about herbal stuff?" Danny asked. "I have a friend who's really smart about that sort of thing—well, I mean, she's smart about everything, but I know she digs flowers, and probably she knows a lot about them?" He looked at Jackson, though, and not Deaton for approval, and Stiles's gut twinged with the realization that Danny was asking if he could bring in Lydia.

"Worth a try I suppose," Deaton said slowly, looking back and forth between the two of them. "But tell her to hurry—He really isn't looking so good."

Lydia was there within fifteen minutes. Danny suspected he'd name dropped Jackson to get it to happen. 

The moment she was through the door, she was in Jackson's arms.   
The scene wasn't all that different from Jackson's and Danny's reunion, but it involved more kissing and tears. And hair, lots of strawberry blonde curls flinging all over as she shook her head. 

They broke apart though, with a glare from Stiles and a groan from Derek, and Lydia moved to Derek's side to check out his arm, all but shoving Erica out of the way.   
Stiles caught Boyd's calming hand on her shoulder, but then his attention turned back to Derek and Lydia. 

"Aconite poisoning… I think. I mean, that's what it looks and smells like, but I've never seen a reaction like this before." She was questioning now, and didn't look like she knew who to ask.   
"Derek's super allergic." Jackson informed her, looking nervously to Deaton.   
"So was his mother." Deaton supplied, obviously pleased with his joke.   
"Derek?" Lydia looked up sharply, peering into Derek's face, and then around the room. Stiles almost grinned when he saw that she'd figured it out.   
"We are going to have a talk about this later." She informed Jackson in a very pointed tone, and every male in the room, save Deaton and Derek, cringed; Deaton, because he was too busy being amazingly stoic and badass, and Derek because he was too busy sweating and spitting up what looked like black blood through a mouth that had apparently gone numb.

"I don't know of any cures for aconite poisoning—as far as I know, you can only hope to stabilize him while his body processes it, and hope he doesn't go into cardiac arrest or stop breathing—seriously, you should get him to a hospital. Scott, isn't your mom—"

"No hospitals." Derek's voice may have been sluggish, but he still commanded a level of respect. "I need someone… suck it out. Not—not a wolf." He glanced at Lydia and Danny with eyes that were quickly glazing over with fever. 

He started shivering about the time that Lydia started spouting questions, and Stiles shouldered his way closer.   
He looked to Deaton, hesitant.   
"Am I going to be one of them if I…?" He let it trail off, feeling his stomach lurch. 

"I am reasonably sure it has to be transmitted through a bite, but don't swallow, just in case." 

"Yeah, not on my to do list I promise." 

That said, Stiles grasped Derek's arm and looked into his face. 

"I'm going to help you now. Please don't… you know, kill me by accident." Derek seized, muscles pulling taut and squeezing a pained moan out of him. Around them, arguing was getting loud, as Danny and Lydia attacked Jackson and Derek, and the pack defended him. 

Stiles tuned it out, and pushed his lips to the too-warm skin of Derek's arm. He sucked, drawing out bitter, floral tasting thick sludge. He pulled his head away to spit it out, and looked up to see Derek watching him intently.   
Unsure what else to do, he lowered his head and drew out more of the poison.   
Three more times, he spat it out, and finally, on the last time, his tongue flicked out inside of the hole, and Derek gasped and squirmed.   
Stiles pulled away. 

"There's… there's something in there." Stiles said, worried, and Deaton pulled down his magnifying goggles, lifting a pair of tweezers.   
He reached in, and pulled out a flower.

"What. The hell. Is that." Lydia asked, her voice utterly flat. 

The flower led to a rope that went deeper into him, pulling out a bit like a magician's scarf trick, studded with the occasional flower, dripping oily black liquid.   
Deaton just kept pulling, until at least two feet of it was free, and then the last of it was stuck. 

He tugged, and the muscles in Derek's neck corded as he strained.   
The really troublesome part was the way his muscles shifted, how hair seemed to race up and down him, appearing and disappearing as he struggled to hold on to humanity.   
With one last tug, Deaton ripped it free, and Derek collapsed forward, nearly onto Stiles. He stood quickly, and lay him down as gently on the table as possible.   
❦  
Stiles and Scott were outside the den, sitting on the ground, hidden by the brush and close by, more for Stiles's comfort than anything else. He was shaken, both by the violence of the situation and the things that Chris Argent had said. 

"He said that… Derek, or his family… or someone… had killed his sister, and his wife, and his father."   
Scott nodded, not surprised by this knowledge. 

"Allison's mom. And Aunt. And Grandfather. There was a mix of self defense and retribution, I guess. I don't think either of us knows the whole story, but… neither side is innocent." 

"I don't…" Stiles started, but then Derek was there, looming and looking better. And angry. 

"Come with me." It was a command, and one Stiles would have been happy to argue with, but Scott scrambled to his feet immediately, and in a show of solidarity, he rose too, and followed Derek and Scott, where they were speaking quickly and quietly, and staying two steps ahead of him, the entire time they walked through the forest. 

He hated that, the feeling of being left out, even though he knew he wasn't really one of them.   
He probably would have just stopped dead and stood still, if the treeline hadn't shrunk suddenly then, opening on a small clearing, attached to a neglected dirt road. 

There was a car there, tarped and unattended, and both Stiles and Scott drew up short, seeing it. Derek, though, was unconcerned, and removed the tarp with a flourish that probably hurt his damaged arm, not that he showed any sign of it. 

He turned to them and gave a smug smirk. 

It was a fucking hot car. Like, the sort of thing that the male underwear models show up in to pick up the pop stars, from made for TV movies. 

"You have a car, but you were running around in clothes that didn't fit, when I got here? Seriously man?" Stiles squawked out, unthinking. Derek's pleased and proud grin slipped off his face, to be replaced with a much more commonplace glare, and Stiles immediately regretted it. He opened his mouth to apologize, but Scott beat him to it.

"So we get to ride in that? Where are we going?" 

Derek, though, wasn't mollified. 

"Just get in the car." He jabbed a finger at Stiles. "You get the back." 

Stiles made a face, but slid in behind Scott's seat, kicking it when Scott turned around to give him his excited puppy face. The reemergence of the expression, something Scott hadn't shown much of, since his dad walked out on him and his mom, made Stiles's heart ache a little, but Derek's scowl over Stiles's abuse of his car helped to cancel it out.

"Do you want to walk?" He asked pointedly, and Stiles scowled back. 

"That would be hard, considering you won't tell us where we're going, huh?" 

"We're going to the hospital." Derek said quietly, starting the car.   
Immediately, the mood sobered. 

"Are you okay?" Scott asked quietly, his voice full of concern directed at the older man. Stiles took a moment to stare at Scott's profile, and wonder why once again. Why the loyalty. Though he realized that, when Derek had been on the vet's table, he'd reacted with unthinking concern and proactivity. He didn't know how to feel about that. Probably that could 

"I'm fine, but I need you to meet someone." He said, with a grave sort of finality that ended all conversation for the remainder of the admittedly not too long drive. 

They snuck past the front desk, though Scott cast a longing glance at what Stiles knew was his mother's work station. It just fed the flames of his curiosity. Why would he give that, his life, his mother, Stiles himself, up for this surly, emotionally constipated man?

They passed along slick looking, white, reflective floors, their shoes loud in the echoing silence. 

The doors, open and closed, each opened into another world, and Stiles found himself getting sad. He had always hated hospitals, especially with as often as he had been in one at the end of his mother's life. 

Derek finally stopped before one, the peach-almost-khaki paint blistering and peeling around the handle. 

He opened it and led them in. 

"This is Peter. Peter Hale. My uncle. He's the last of my family now. He's what happens when you trust a hunter. When you let them in to your life." 

Peter was laying in his bed, his neck supported by a pillow and his eyes open, but unseeing.   
And half of his face, down his neck, disappearing into the hospital gown, was covered in thick scars. The sort that looked like vaguely human colored candle wax, dribbled across his skin, and leeching down into it. 

He didn't move, or show any sign of knowing that they were there. 

Scott scowled and crossed his arms. 

"Allison is different. We've talked about this, Derek, and you know you can't stop me from seeing her, short of killing me, so unless you've changed your mind about that…" Scott waited, then shrugged. 

"I'm going to wait in the car. This place smells too much like my mom, and if I don't get out of here, I'm going to do something stupid, like walk home. To her house." 

He left, all moody teenager and stomping shoes. 

Stiles stared at Peter for a heartbeat more before pulling his gaze away and back to Derek's.   
"Why." He gestured at the man on the bed. "Why would they do this?" 

"Because of what we are. Because my family was all in one place and too easy of a target for them to pass up. Because I… was young, and stupid, and let my guard down. Everything we are now stems from that." 

"So the reason you can't make a normal pack, is because you're all messed up from this?" 

Derek stared. 

"I'm not messed up. I'm fine." 

"You're telling me you don't feel guilt?" Derek's eyes dulled and he swallowed.   
"Anger?" His eyes narrowed and his hackles raised.   
"Fear?" He clenched his fist.  
"Are you trying to tell me you don't care? About the werekids? About your uncle? About anyone?"  
"Caring is an overstatement. And would be too easy for someone else to take advantage of."   
"Oh no. No, I'm not buying it. You may not want to say so, but you do care about those kids. You've taken care of them when no one else could, haven't you? Their parents couldn't do anything about their situations. You tried to make it better for them, and when you failed, you took responsibility for it. And you're kind to them, under all the growls." 

"Enough, Stiles. You missed the point." Derek sounded simultaneously angry and tired. 

"Why would you bring Scott and me if you didn't care?" Stiles pressed on, and Derek's eyes flashed red. He crowded Stiles back against the door. 

"Enough."

Stiles raised his hands in surrender. 

"I'm sorry. I… they care for you too, you know that right? Somehow, for some reason, we all do." 

Derek stared and scowled.   
"Shut up, Stiles." He finally settled on, and there was so much venom in it, that Stiles wasn't sure what he could do about it.

"So now what?" He asked, when the tension and silence had stretched on too long.   
Derek sighed. 

"Now we go home. Go to Scott. I'm going to take a moment with my uncle. And neither of you touch anything."

Stiles glanced back at the man on the bed, and thought he saw an eye move, but he didn't say anything, sure he was mistaken. 

"Alright. Take your time."


	7. Seven

Stiles found himself wandering through the woods, alone, having managed to sneak out while the wolves were having an argument about what came next. 

After his realization regarding Derek's state of emotional turmoil, he'd done research into the past cases of mutated lycanthropy, of the very few records of similarly half formed werewolves. 

They all came in troubling times, and were born of misguided well intentions and desperation. 

And the only case of having it fixed sounded like it was the result of the end of the tumultuous times. 

Stiles told them he was willing to bet that the answer was a second bite, from a well balanced wolf. 

He didn't look Derek in the eyes when he said so. 

Or when he explained. 

He didn't look any of them in the eyes when Derek told them that any older wolf who would bite them would have to be an alpha, and would insist on them joining their pack—if they didn't kill the werekids just for approaching. 

Stiles walked out, because then he knew that it would be exactly like Chris had said. And Derek would be left alone.  
Which was the exact opposite of what he needed. Of what would help him. 

He wasn't paying attention to where he wandered, counting on Scott to come and find him when the meeting was over. 

Instead, he managed to stumble almost into Chris Argent's arms. 

"Stiles Stilinski." He drawled, as Stiles bounced off his chest and landed on his ass.   
He skittered backwards on his hands and feet, losing his balance as something under him shifted unexpectedly. 

Chris clucked his tongue, disapproving. 

"You know, I underestimated you." He said. "For a human, you're not as weak a link as we thought. I'm sure Derek is proud to have you in the pack."   
He offered Stiles his hand, manners disarmingly mild. 

"I'm not part of the pack, thanks." Stiles muttered, and he picked himself up and dusted himself off, keeping a narrow eyed watch on Chris. He was suspicious, sure, but he felt like, if Chris wanted something, maybe it was something the Pack should know about. 

"Oh, now that isn't true. They came to save you, didn't they?" 

"I was a liability. Derek didn't realize I didn't know where the lair was. He probably wouldn't have come otherwise. He doesn't care." 

"No, that's true. He doesn’t. But even if he isn’t, Stiles, I'm proud of you, for what it's worth." 

Stiles stared at him, not even bothering to be anything less than surprised and flattered. It had been a while since anyone said anything like that to him. He was just ordinary, after all. Nothing to congratulate. Nothing to be proud of. 

As though hearing his thoughts, Chris smiled at him. 

"Why don’t you let me buy you some food? You look like you could use a few good meals on you." 

Stiles only hesitated for a moment, glancing over his shoulder before firming his mouth and nodding his acceptance at Chris. 

They made small talk as he followed him to his car, and, somehow, Stiles found himself not afraid, but entranced.   
❦

"What would I even do as a hunter? I'm not going to kill my friends. " Stiles protested, and Chris shook his head.   
"No, no, I think we've decided to leave them be, for now. Derek seems to have his hands full, but we think he may possibly be capable. Besides, despite what my sister did, there are codes that we honor—as long as the werewolves don't kill anyone, they are safe from us. Your friends may not be the traditional werefolk, but for now we'll let them fall into the same category, unless something changes. No, we would use you for research. My daughter tells me your research skills are commendable." 

Stiles shifted uncomfortably. He knew Allison Argent, distantly, from school… he'd just never realized she'd noticed anything about him, before. But Chris pressed on.   
"And the best part is, if you join us, there's no reason why you couldn't have the best of both worlds. Go home, see your father. Go back to school. We'll help you come up with a story, pin the kidnappings on someone who's recently died… you could have your life back, and see your friends as well. What do you think?"

"Can I… will you give me some time to think this over?" Stiles was sure there was a catch there somewhere. He just didn't know where. 

"Of course. And don't worry. I promise not to have you followed. Like I said, we're satisfied that he's in control, for now. Just, keep your thoughts to yourself, won't you? Werewolves are ridiculously territorial." 

"Right." Stiles said, his hands shaking a bit as he stood. He started for the door of the diner, registering the careful distance that Chris maintained between them as he followed, so as not to feel threatening. 

Stiles climbed into the car and settled in as Chris buckled up. The car was started, but before they could leave the lot, Stiles lay his hand over Chris's, stopping the motion of the gear stick. 

"Do you think, before we go back, we could maybe stop somewhere first?" 

"Sure." Chris responded easily, and Stiles's stomach twisted into a knot.

❦  
Stiles rested his fingers on the windowsill, his heart beating in his chest as he peered into the window beside his front door. 

If the lighting was right, which it was, you could see all the way in to the kitchen table. 

Where his father sat, slumped forward, probably asleep on his paperwork. An empty bottle of Jack sat beside him, and Stiles sucked in a breath and bit down on his bottom lip to try and contain the tears. 

Before they'd been married, his mom said that his dad had been a partier. Problems with alcohol. But he'd settled down.   
Until she'd died, when he'd spent months drowning the pain of her loss with the contents of several bottles. 

Stiles had been the one to pull him out of it, to get angry and throw it all away. To tell him no more. 

With Stiles gone, he'd apparently started again. 

Stiles felt so ashamed. So guilty. He'd let Derek talk him out of leaving a note, thinking they would be right back. Thinking he'd be the one who kept a level head and didn't just agree to whatever Derek said because it promised to give him an adventure, a chance to prove himself. A chance to be extraordinary. 

Chris lay a hand on his shoulder and squeezed, and the gesture was so kind, so human, that Stiles forgot that the ache that came with it was also Argent's fault. He just put his own hand on top, and squeezed it back. 

"Come on. I'll take you back to the edge of the forest. I'm sure your friends are looking for you. Another day or two won't hurt anyone at this point."

Stiles nodded, stealing one last glance at his father's form, worried about how sore he'd be from sleeping in that position, then stood, sniffling a little louder than he'd like with his next inhale. 

Chris just gave him a sympathetic look, and held the door open for him to climb in. 

Stiles wrapped his arms around himself, and was quiet the whole way back.


	8. Eight

"Where the hell were you, Stiles?" Derek's tone was biting and angry. "We searched the entire forest for you, and you didn't answer. Where. Did. You. Go."   
He'd wandered until Scott had found him, and taken him directly back to the den, racing against the rising sun to get there, lest Derek be even more upset than he already was.   
As it turned out, it made no difference.

"I went to a diner, okay? Look, I've been gone for a bit, no one is going to even remember fliers if they ever made any to begin with. And I'm sort of unremarkable looking. Which just means, you know, no one is going to remark on me."   
He shrugged, his chest tightening from fear of being found out.   
"You're lying." Derek's tone was flat but his teeth were lengthening and becoming pointed. 

"No, I really did go to the diner. Seriously." Stiles crossed his arms.

"That's not all, though. What did you do there? You're hiding something from me." 

"Oh, and I owe you answers to everything, do I? How about that—you can keep all kinds of secrets, but you expect full disclosure and complete honesty from everyone you know."

Derek's reply was a wordless growl.

"I was speaking to Chris Argent, if you really want to know." Stiles spat smugly, but he flinched when Derek slammed his fist into the table. 

"WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM?" Derek's question was a roar. 

"I told him that I was flattered by his invitation to join his crew."

"But he kidnapped you. He's a creep!" Erica broke in, clearly agitated.

"Actually, he strikes me as a very caring person. I told him I wouldn't hurt my friends, and he told me that he was willing to include the werekids under the werewolf heading in your agreement, as long as you kept them in check." He still spoke directly to Derek, not so sure of himself as to think it wise to take his eyes off of the man who could easily tear him apart, and was damn near angry enough for it.

"Stiles… you're not really going to become a hunter are you?" Scott was pleading with him, and his friend's voice was what finally made him look away from Derek. 

"No, Scott." He assured him, and everyone relaxed, as though that solved everything. "I'm going home." Stiles concluded. "And anyone who wants to join me. Now that we know what's wrong—can you really stay with him? I mean, you have to find a new alpha if you want to be able to control it, right? So why keep playing by his crazy rules? You can go home, learn to drive, finish school, date—we'll talk with Chris, have him help us find someone who can take care of you."

They looked between themselves, but it was Scott who came to stand by Stiles first.   
"I can see my mom?" Stiles clapped his hand on Scott's back. "Isaac, you should come with me—I don't think mom would mind. She always wanted another son."

"I'm old enough I could be moving out of my parents' house soon—I can use my scholarship, go to school…" Boyd said, and Erica nodded, sliding her hand into his. 

"Whatever you decide to do, we're doing it together."

Jackson looked around. 

"I can have my Porsche back, Lydia, Danny? Yeah, I'm not sticking around." 

Derek just stared at Stiles as though he'd been mortally wounded, and Stiles shrugged. 

"And you Derek? Why don't you come back, too? Rejoin the living. Have a full life not dictated by taking care of these half-wolves."

Derek didn't answer, just spun on his heel and walked deeper into the den, slamming around inside of his sleeping area. 

Scott winced. 

"He'll come around. Just give him some time to get used to the idea."   
Stiles really doubted it, but he didn't say anything about it. 

"Grab your stuff, guys. Let's go talk to Argent."   
❦  
The moment they stepped out of the den, they found themselves surrounded by Argent's men. Glowing red sight dots appeared on their chests and Erica tipped her head back, changing and getting ready to howl, only to be cracked on the back of the head with a rifle stock. 

She dropped like a stone, and Boyd stood over her, his claws out and teeth bared, daring anyone to get close to her. 

With the sound of blow darts, tranquilizers hit each of the wolves, leaving Stiles the only one standing, and staring straight into Chris's eyes, angry and defiant and betrayed. 

"No hard feelings." Chris said calmly, and with another blow dart's whoosh, Stiles was slumping to the floor as well.  
❦  
Stiles woke up in a room he wished wasn't utterly familiar. He was tied up again, ropes rough against wrists that didn't have the benefit this time of a buffering layer of plaid overshirt, or even the sweatshirt he knew he'd had on when they left the den.

He rolled to his side, looking up to see that each of the werekids had been trussed with chain—a lot of chain—and been suspended from some heavy duty looking hooks in the roof that he hadn't noticed, last time. 

"You know, we could still use a researcher, Stiles." Chris spoke from where he sat on the writing surface of his desk, a gun taken apart and sat beside him while he cleaned part of it in his lap. 

Jackson squirmed in his chains.   
"I'll research for you! I'm a straight A student, I'd be really good at it!" 

"Yes but you," Chris said, pausing significantly and swinging his eyes to meet Jackson's, "are an abomination. So." 

"I know how to fix them, though." Stiles told him hurriedly. "We think we found a solution. They don't have to be like this." 

"Oh? Can you make them human?" Chris turned that burning gaze back at Stiles, who struggled to his knees, then his feet. 

Isaac snarled at that, and one of Argent's men injected him with something that made his eyes glaze over and his arms go limp.

The others let loose small growls, but they seemed smart enough to keep their mouths shut, lest they join Isaac's ranks. 

"No. No, but I can make them whole werewolves. Or at least, we could, if we could find a different alpha." Stiles broke in hurriedly.

"Ahhh." Chris sat down the part and his rag. "So you're saying that it's not them, it's Derek. So no matter what, whoever he bites, will turn out like this?" Chris nodded to himself. "We'd suspected that was the case, but without proof… well, I suppose that settles it, then." He pushed himself off the desk with his hands, the movement graceful. 

"You'll help us?" Stiles asked, hopeful again. 

"Help you, my dear boy, of course—we're going to get rid of all of this unnecessary worry in your life. All the monsters are simply going to disappear." His voice was light and airy, but it came down hard. "Starting with Derek Hale."   
He twitched his head towards the door, and his men followed his silent order, leaving Stiles and Chris alone with the werekids. 

"You can't kill him. He hasn't killed anyone, and your code--!" Stiles tried appealing to Chris one last time. 

"But he's going to be the one responsible for the murders of all these children. He signed their death warrant when he bit each of them. Now, usually, we'd take care of them first, but with them in our custody, we're going to focus on catching Hale, so he doesn't get away."

This was greeted with the sound of struggles coming from each of the chained teenagers. 

"Think about my offer, will you Stiles? I'd hate for Hale to have to add your death to his list of responsibilities."  
That said, he left, and the door bolted firmly behind him.


	9. Nine

Now, Stiles was not all nervous energy and lack of focus. Sometimes, with his Adderall, he could focus on one thought, one project, that there was no room for anything else. And he had one pill left, after all that researching. He'd been saving it for a time when he needed it, and now seemed like the best time of all. 

He tugged his arms to one side, ignoring the pain in his stretching shoulder, and managed to dig his prescription bottle out of his pants pocket. 

It fell to the ground and he just sucked it up and slammed his foot down on it, cracking the orange plastic and making it shatter into lethal looking splinters. 

"You really think this is the time for that, Stilinski?" Erica snapped, obviously impatient.

"It's Adderall. It's gonna help. Just, trust him, okay Erica? Stiles is gonna get us out of this."

"Stiles? The parts on the table." Boyd nodded to where Chris had been sitting. There was bound to be something sharp over there. 

"Yeah, just a sec." Stiles got back on his knees, bent down, and caught his Adderall pill in his teeth, carefully spitting out a piece of plastic that came along for the ride, before swallowing it. 

He went to the desk and picked up some… inside of a gun part, he didn't know what it was, in his hand, and began rubbing the machined side against his ropes. He talked as he did. 

"Can you guys break your chains? I mean, I assume they're ready to handle you, since that's what they do, but… just checking."

"No, they haven't budged." Erica's voice had lost its anger, and she was looking over at Isaac. 

"Yeah. So pretty much if you guys can't there's no way I'll be able to, but maybe the keys are in his drawer. Once I'm loose, I'm going to get you loose, and then we'll need to split up. Me and Scott are going to go after Derek. Erica, Jackson, Boyd, you take Isaac, get him to Deaton's, make sure he's safe and you aren't followed."

"Why you? We're stronger, more experienced…" Boyd asked, not angry, just trying to puzzle his way through Stiles's reasoning. 

"Because I want you and Jackson taking point and flank around Erica, who I want to carry Isaac. That's going to be the safest formation. Scott and I are small, and fast, and hopefully quiet, and I'm the one who led Chris to the den. If Derek dies…" Stiles swallowed, and his rope finally started to give. 

"Talk to Deaton, see if he knows where you can find another alpha, and stop living in limbo." 

He stretched his arms out, pulling the rope apart, and shifted until the coils around his wrists slackened enough for him to pull his hands out.

There was no key in the desk. 

"Go. You're wasting time, and Derek is in trouble." Scott urged. 

"Don't you dare leave us here, Stilinski!" Jackson finally piped up, sounding terrified.

There was a cellphone, though, laying under his hoodie when he lifted that and put it back on.

"I'm going to get to reception and call Deaton. You just hang on—they said they won't hurt you until after they take care of Derek, and I'm sure he took most of his men with him for that."

"How do you intend to get out, smart guy?" Erica was back to challenging and disapproving. 

"There are windows, chairs, and a fire hydrant. Clearly, I am flying out on a magic carpet. Just… I'm sorry. I'm going, I'll send help. Just—"

"If you tell us to hang in there, I will smack you next time I see you man." Scott interrupted, and Stiles just grinned, dragging the chair over to the high up window and hoisting the fire hydrant over his head. 

The glass shattered, he batted it out of the way with the metal, hoisted himself up and then he was out and off into the night.  
❦  
The scene that Stiles stumbled onto, after a none too quiet head first sprint through the forest, was heart breaking.   
Fortunately, he supposed, the hunters were too busy beating the shit out of Derek to hear him approaching.   
He didn't know why Derek hadn't wolfed out yet.   
But there was a man holding each arm, and Chris had just kneed him in the stomach when Stiles stopped. He could hear Chris speaking over his panting.

"—Defective, Derek. You let people down, over and over again. Every time you get yourself a family, you end up being the cause of all of their deaths. Isn't that true?"

Derek just hung his head, not even really fighting back. 

"You know, it's so funny—how loyal they were to you, until they knew that this was your fault. The tall, blonde, angry one offered to join us, did you know? And Stiles, what a shame. He had such potential." 

Stiles all but gasped as Derek let out a keening howl, low in his still very human throat. 

Derek heard, and his head swung towards Stiles, alerting Chris to his presence. 

He strode to where Stiles was crouched and pulled him up and into the clearing by the hood of his sweatshirt.

He stumbled, falling to his knees, and Derek stared down at him, numb and almost unseeing.

"Stiles, what a pleasant surprise. Have you come to join us after all? You want to be a hunter, boy?"

"I'd rather die." He spat out, turning his face up to the werewolf standing immobile above him. "Derek, Derek come on. Just—wolf out, take them out, kill all of them, you can do it, I've seen you."

"Shut up, Stilinski. I don't know why you bother. He's the reason for all of this, the cause of all of your friends' hurt. Leave him to us, go home, go back to your father. Stop him from drinking himself to death." 

"Yeah, you know, I wondered that myself, too. I thought, why would they stay with him, why would they defend him, when all that he did was make them miserable. But you know what? He tries. He actually actively works to make them happy, to take care of them. That's more than could be said for some of their folks. He was trying to make their lives better, and they know that. Appreciate that. And they know he needs them just as much as they need him. He needs a family. It makes sense. Because there's respect there. Gratefulness. Love." 

Derek's eyes were focusing on Stiles now. 

"He killed them, Stiles." Derek's voice was flat, hollow, emotionless. "He killed them, and it's my fault." 

"No." Stiles was frantic, managing that much before Chris slapped a hand over his mouth and drug him to his feet. 

"That's enough, Stiles. Honestly, what makes you think he'd listen to you? You aren't one of his little monsters. You're just a human. Weak and disposable, and he's a failure of an Alpha."

Stiles bit down on the soft flesh of Chris's hand, and Chris dropped him with a grunt. 

"They're alive. They're with your friend who fixed you up. Everyone is okay, Derek! And none of them wanted to leave you. Isaac was hurt, but… Derek please, you have to believe me!" 

Stiles could see the belief spreading across Derek's face. Hope swept away the wrinkle between his eyebrows, and relief was followed quickly by anger aimed at Chris. 

"I am going to say this now, Argent. Get out of my woods. Or you won't ever have another chance."   
As soon as the words, really more of a growl, had cleared his mouth, Derek began to transform, his muscles rippling and growing, becoming too thick for the men behind him to keep a good grip on. 

Acting fast, Stiles pulled Argent's gun out of his holster, and swung it around, leveling it at any man who dared so much as take aim at the wolf that was now crouched protectively in front of Stiles, ready to spring. 

There was a tense moment of total silence, and then Chris raised his hands. 

"I underestimated you, boy. But don't think that means this is over." 

Derek snarled and clashed his teeth together, and Chris and his men melted back into the trees. 

They watched them go, and then Derek turned back, and Stiles gave him his sweatshirt to wear as a dress. 

"Thank you." Derek said simply, and it was thanks for a lot of things. Stiles just nodded and smiled.

❦  
It took him a long time to talk Derek into delivering anything to his father. He wouldn't take a letter, or a note. Nothing that could lead him here, could let him find them. 

But Stiles knew his dad. Knew he wouldn't give up as long as he thought there was a chance Stiles would come back—and he didn't know whether sending something would give him a renewed sense of hope, or let him finally stop.   
So he was careful with it, put as much thought into it as possible, and when he was done, even Derek nodded, understanding the message. 

He took it with him when he went out that evening. He didn't have it when it came back.   
Stiles just hoped his dad understood.

❦

The Sheriff went to the window, the way he did every night before his rounds.  
Hoping.   
Searching.   
He never stopped.   
He turned back to Stiles's bed, dreaming, just for a moment, like always, that he was asleep, safe, home where he belonged. 

But instead, there were just the dolls. Derek, Laura, Erica, Isaac, Boyd, Jackson, Scott. It would be a month or more before he realized that a new doll had appeared. Another one, from nowhere, constructed with just as much care as the others, though the materials differed. This was made of sticks and vines, and it bore his son's face. 

When he did find it, he had no idea where it came from. Only that it meant what the others did: Stiles was not coming back.   
❦

Years later, the dolls were buried with the Sheriff by a town grieving his loss. He was a great man, and no one thought it odd that he should be so invested in the case. 

Everyone knew about his son and his friend. 

They'd erected a memorial in the park, and after young Stilinski's disappearance, no one had ever gone missing again. Not in a permanent way. Occasionally a teenager or two would run off for a couple of days, but they always came back. 

And everyone in town showed up to pay their respects to the Sheriff. 

And if there were a few extra attendees, a circle of tall young people, clustered together, faces down against the rain, and each with a hand on a still gawky, boyish form in the center, no one noticed.   
Or if they did, they didn't say anything. 

Which was just as well, because those kids wouldn't have paid it any heed.   
After all, what troubles a grownup will never trouble a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus concludes our tale. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> If you feel like hugging it out, come hit me up at fandomitis.tumblr.com!

**Author's Note:**

> This is a complete story- the version on my computer is 38 pages long, and as I check it for mistakes, I'll be posting it a bit at a time, so you can look forward to regular updates.
> 
> If you want to follow me on Tumblr for updates on my stories as I write them, you will find me at MostFacinorous.tumblr.com! -- come say hi!


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